On the cerealia of Western Africa / by W.F. Daniell.

  • Daniell, William F. (William Freeman), 1818-1865.
Date:
1852
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: On the cerealia of Western Africa / by W.F. Daniell. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    constitutional vigour and robustness than those that have been nurtured on yams, cassada, and other vegetable esculents; and, moreover, are better fitted * to resist the enervating influences of labour and climate. Hygienic regulations, the result of an improved code of dietetics from higher social customs, have likewise contributed to favour this distinctive superiority, and hence a tendency to the assumption of certain adynamic types of disease is less manifested. Bui while this exemption, to some extent, takes place in populations whose physical amelioration partly proceeds from the sort of farinaceous food on which they are fed, conjoined with other endemic agencies, a predisposition naturally follows towards the induction of an opposite class of maladies, chiefly distinguished by the sthenic action they exert on the epidermal and mucous membranes of the body. This special prevalence may be remarked in many regions of tropical Africa, where the grossness and uniformity of diet has led to those disordered states of the chylo-poietic viscera, which promote the generation of such entozoa as are known to infest the internal cavities and parenchymatous structures. On the Gold Coast the predominance of various species of intestinal worms, particularly the lurribricus teres, has frequently been observed, and though the ascarides are to be found in an almost equal ratio, they are much more prevalent amongst the inhabitants of the swampy lowlands, who live but indifferently and on substances of a poorer quality. It may, however, be considered somewhat ques- tionable, whether these particular kinds of nutriment predispose the body to the germination of the Filaria medinensis, so extremely common to all grades of people on this coast; a probability rather feasable, but, unfortunately from the insufficient data we possess, cannot be satisfactorily verified. The effects more obviously proceeding from this addiction to such farinaceous edibles (rice being ex- cepted) is that general torpor and constipation of the bowels to which the natives are so liable, and which they endeavour to avert, by introducing oleaginous soups and stimulating condiments into their dishes, or to remove by the daily employment of emollient enemata, from the frequency of whose requisition may be inferred the inefficiency of the former means. Apparently analogous irregularities of the intestinal canal may be traced to the same causes among the modern Peruvians, from similar varieties of food, they, according to Dr. Von Tschudi, being under the necessity of eating the fruit of the Erythroxylon coca. Lam. to obviate the inconveniences that proceed from these sources. He remarks in his interesting work, that the sustenance of “ the Indians consists, almost exclusively, of vegetable substances, especially roasted maize and barley, converted into flour by crushing, which they eat without the admixture of any other substance. The continued use of this farinaceous food occasions severe obstructions, which the well known aperient qualities of the coca counteract, and many serious diseases are thereby prevented.”:}: Among European residents in Africa, these native preparations of corn exert, at first, a purgative action, which, however, soon ceases, when the system has become more habituated to their effects.